This week in healthcare news

Posted on January 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

Type 1 diabetes — the autoimmune disease that begins in childhood and used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes — is rising, around the globe, at 3 percent to 5 percent per year. And at this point, no one can quite say why. Continue reading →

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Posted in Weekly news mash-up

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Another indication for antidepressants ?

Posted on January 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

Psychiatrists are debating whether or not to change the definition of depression in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  With 1 in 10 Americans currently on some type of antidepressant medication one has to wonder if this change would lead to another indication for Rx medications and expand the 11 billion market. Continue reading →

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Is there an opportunity for mobile health apps ?

Posted on January 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

I keep hearing about how mobile is “set to explode” for brands and marketers but is this true for health ?   The answer to that it depends if pharma can really deliver on the promise of mobile applications for health which means putting users first. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health information, Mobile healthcare marketing & trends

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Want more new drugs ? Extend patent protection

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 2 Comments

Good medicine equals good profits but in today’s complex regulated environment for new drug approvals pharma companies cannot afford to innovate because it costs more to develop new drugs and it can take longer to get approval from the FDA. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business of the drug industry

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Lap band surgery: An easy way for clinics to make money at patients expense ?

Posted on January 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Here on the West Coast there is an interesting legal case unfolding around lap band surgery.  It seems that a woman, who was not a good candidate for surgery, had the surgery after a clinic allegedly ordered her surgeon to perform the surgery despite his “concerns”.   The FDA is going to need to ensure that lap band surgery is performed as a “last measure” and that some medical clinics don’t see it as “a profitable” option where money comes first. Continue reading →

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Posted in Bad practices

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Health emergency: Type 2 diabetes

Posted on January 21, 2012 | 4 Comments

Unless we develop better programs for detecting people with elevated blood sugar and helping them to improve their diet and physical activity and control their weight, diabetes will inevitably continue to impose a major burden on health systems around the world,“ Goodarz Danaei said from the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States.   The most common type of diabetes, Type 2, is strongly associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, which means Americans are not doing what the have to stay healthy and fit. Continue reading →

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Posted in Cost of healthcare in the U.S.

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Healthcare headlines this week

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

U.S. drug regulators need further clinical data, possibly including new clinical studies, before approving a new diabetes drug from AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb.  The two companies said on Thursday they had received a so-called “complete response letter” from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for dapagliflozin as a treatment for type 2 diabetes in adults. Continue reading →

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Posted in Weekly news mash-up

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Are ePatients self diagnosing too much ?

Posted on January 19, 2012 | 4 Comments

Last month I heard the story of a fairly young man who had to have the lower half of his leg amputated because he thought he thought the numbness and tingling were “nothing”.  It turns out that he was an undiagnosed diabetic whose diabetes was out of control.   One has to wonder how many more people are out there who are undiagnosed with a variety of health problems and the long-term social and financial costs ? Continue reading →

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Posted in Health information online

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The social and financial costs of diabetes

Posted on January 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

The announcement that Nova is going to use Paula Deen as a spokesperson for their products has been met by a lot of criticism including this author.  We have to remember that Type 2 diabetes is largely preventable and that a nationwide education and community-based lifestyle programs are what is desperately needed if we are to confront this disease and it’s terrible costs. Continue reading →

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Posted in Cost of healthcare in the U.S.

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This is a spokesperson for Novo ?

Posted on January 17, 2012 | 4 Comments

Using celebrity chef and Food Network star Paula Deen to team with drugmaker Novo Nordisk to launch a program that aims to help people live with Type 2 diabetes and promote a Novo diabetes drug is akin to using Kim Kardashian as a spokesperson for the sanctity of marriage ! Continue reading →

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Posted in Bad practices

Pradaxa: Case study on DTC marketing moratorium ?

Posted on January 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

In the first quarter of 2011, the FDA received 40,151 domestic reports of serious, disabling or fatal injury associated with drug therapy. The total represented a 3% increase over the previous calendar quarter, and a 19.5% increase over the first quarter of 2010.   Continue reading →

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Posted in FDA, Focus on patients

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